Movie #15: Released in 1943, directed by Maya Deren and Alexander Hammid, 14 min(!), new to me.

LetterBoxd Score: 4 stars

This “movie” (can a movie be 15 minutes?) is like a blueprint, or a minimum viable product, for a new kind of film. It feels decades ahead of its time. It’s very short, but it assembles more memorable shots in that 15 minutes than many movies do with ten times the length: the cloaked figure with a mirror face; a drowned body where it should not be; silver globes for eyes; stabbing a face and puncturing reality. There’s a brief scene where the protagonist stumbles up a staircase, and the camera matches her lurching, in a way that makes you, the viewer, feel disoriented as well. I thought to myself “that’s new” when I saw it. The silence also gives it a dreamlike feel.

What more can you say though? It’s a great little hallucinatory nightmare. Something new in cinema perhaps? Would watch again.

Why would someone think it’s one of the ten greatest movies ever made?

For the reasons I gave above. But I also think it doesn’t really deserve to be called a movie. It’s a working prototype.

Next week: A matter of life and death